Oct 18, 2012

Don't Let Your Tax Dollars Sink With This Ship

The Pentagon once again wants to spend billions of your taxpayer funds on a new ship that is plagued with problems. We think it’s time to say "no."

The Navy testing office recently said the littoral combat ship is not meant for combat, even though combat is literally its middle name! The Navy plans to spend $2.2 billion next year on this program, but the Project On Government Oversight revealed that there have been numerous problems during testing and early deployment (including cracks in the hull and loss of power throughout the entire ship). POGO also revealed that Navy officials hid poor testing results while it was trying to convince Congress to buy more ships. The Navy ultimately envisions buying 55 of these sub-par ships.

More government jobs that were outsourced to defense contractors that the government, in this case the Navy, did better themselves. Back when we spent less for a real naval force of 600 ships, the US Navy designed its own ships. Now we spend more to try to keep less than half that many little crappy ships afloat. Of course, the US Air Force designed the experimental X series aircraft that broke the sound barrier back in the 1950s, and NASA designed their the rockets that took Americans to the moon in the 1960s. Clearly that was a system that worked all too well because now we pay tens of billions of dollars for aircraft that can only break cost barriers, and NASA hasn't been able to put a man on the moon since they started outsourcing rocket design to contractors in the 1970s. But why would we ever think of going back to what worked when this nation was great, instead of a great big cash pinata for government contractors to hit with a stick?